


Window Shopping

by Tyellas



Series: Lab T-4 [1]
Category: Hairspray (2007), The Shape of Water (2017)
Genre: Friendship, Mr. Pinky's Hefty Hideaway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-03 17:37:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12753000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: Baltimore, 1962. Friendship, dreams, and life’s compromises as Elisa and Zelda go window shopping after work.Shape of Waterwith a littleHairspraycrossover too.





	Window Shopping

**Author's Note:**

> A little something to tide us over as we wait for _The Shape of Water_ to be released. No spoilers beyond the trailers.

Zelda always remembered it, afterwards. Clocking out and going home two days before the government brought that _thing_ to Occam Aerospace. Going to catch the bus, unusually, with Elisa.

"Of all the days to cancel the northbound bus. Raining! And Brewster’ll be waiting on me to cook. You’d think my man could do for himself just a little. I might as well have a goldfish in a bowl from the church fair as a husband! I swear, he’s good for one thing. You know what I mean.”

If anything could reconcile Zelda to walking twenty blocks in the dawn rain, it was doing it with Elisa. Even with integration under way, it was hard to find space to be friends when you were black and white. Once in a blue moon, they’d grab a piece of pie together at an almost-empty automat. Or they’d wind up on a walk like this.

Occam Aerospace, where they cleaned on the night shift, was off the grim industrial end of Eastern Avenue. When they came to the civilized part of the street, the store fronts brought Elisa to life. Zelda figured Elisa wore half her pay packet – always switching up her shoes and bags, always a bit of shimmer on her coat. Maybe Zelda would have, too, if she didn’t have her man to look after. Two mouths ate up a pay packet fast. As they went, Elisa fluttered from dime store to shoe shop, heedless of the rain, always darting back to Zelda.

At one window, Elisa waited, her fingers hovering over the glass with longing. When Zelda caught up, she touched Zelda’s arm to pause her. Indulgently, Zelda said, “Another pretty thing? I swear, this is why it takes you forever and a – oh. Oh my.”

Mr. Pinky’s Hefty Hideaway had the prettiest dresses in Baltimore. The boutique's chrome-and-aqua storefront had drawn Elisa in like a streetlamp pulled a moth. This once, Zelda was trapped, too. The window had four curvaceous mannequins in spangled dresses. In the middle was a large pasteboard sign, a blown-up photo of the starlet Tracy Turnblad in a handsome boy’s arms. Its caption declared, in swooping script, MEET MR. RIGHT AT YOUR FALL SOIREÉ…IN A GOWN FROM HEFTY HIDEAWAY!

Elisa was enraptured with a dress in the left corner of the window. It was a sheath of green, blue, and silver brocade. The low, wide collar had a band of silver lame embroidered up with pearl beads, big sequins, and all kinds of crystals. With the glitter and sparkle and bluey-greens, they might’ve put it there as Elisa bait, Zelda thought. But it was sized for a big gal, not a poor slip of a thing like Elisa.

“That’s fine, all right. That is something fine. Pretty as a wedding dress. What’s that sign there say? Unique Couture. Means that’s the only one.”

Elisa nodded, almost hopping in enthusiasm. _For you!_ _Buy it!_

Zelda stepped back. “Me? You mean me? That’s for some young thing off doing the Madison to the doo-wop. Where’m I going to wear that? To scrub out the men’s room? Be real, now.”

With her slyest smile, Elisa signed, _Church._

For one instant, Zelda pictured the dress with a dazzling hat. Then she bopped Eliza’s arm. “And have Brewster going off on me for being so spendy? You’re the devil sometimes!”

Elisa’s hands began to move – and then stopped. Her mouth quirked to the left, nearly frowning. She turned back to the dress.

Zelda simmered. It wasn’t just her own money, not when she had a husband. Elisa knew what a good time was, had a naughty streak wide as the avenue. But she wasn’t married. It took work to get along with a man when the good times were done. Zelda could put her foot down with Elisa about it. But...life was hard enough.  

The rain kicked up. Zelda adjusted her plastic rain bonnet over her bouffant. “Ain't neither of us Tracy Turnblad, Baltimore's sweetheart. We need to quit looking at things we can’t have and get on home.” She took out another rain bonnet. “Here. Let’s put this on you. You always do your hair nice.”

Elisa’s face gentled. _Thank you_ , she signed. She didn’t half-dance when they moved on, but walked beside Zelda.

The day after, at the start of their shift, Zelda punched Elisa in and got a harried smile from her. Then they’d found a new project in their cleaning area. And a new security manager, Strickland. And a mess of trouble. Neither of them thought about dresses much for the next while. They were too busy watching out for themselves, and each other.

But Zelda remembered their window shopping soon enough. At work, she had tiptoed out of the back corner of the new project lab, T-4. Elisa was a real friend, all right. She had volunteered to clean next to the giant tanks that held the lab’s _thing._ What Zelda saw took her back to that last morning.

Elisa was stuck against a window again, fluttering with longing, her fingers hovering over the glass. But this time, the window was the glass of the lab's tank. The lab’s _thing_ , that scary, scale-spangled, unique thing, was up against the glass, too.

And it was looking back at Elisa.


End file.
